U.S. utility company NextEra Energy has expanded its partnership with Alphabet’s Google Cloud to build new energy supplies for the company’s operations across the U.S., the groups said on Monday.
NextEra and Google currently have 3.5 gigawatts of electricity generation – enough to power about 2.5 million homes – in operation or contracted.
As part of the new deal, the companies will develop multiple new large-scale data center campuses in the U.S. that will be built with new power plants. They did not specify how much extra capacity would be added, or financial details of the agreement.
NextEra shares were down 1% by 1722 GMT, having risen in premarket trading.
The agreement comes as U.S. electricity demand reaches record highs from the proliferation of data centers needed to train and roll out artificial intelligence.
Without enough supplies readily available on the existing grid, giant technology companies are contracting to build new electricity sources to power their AI data center expansion.
“We are positioning our company around bring-your-own-generation, and we are uniquely positioned to win this,” NextEra CEO John Ketchum said at an investor conference.
NextEra and Google Cloud also plan to launch an AI-powered product by mid-2026 that will help manage work in the field, predicting energy equipment problems and other functions aimed at increasing the reliability of the grid, the companies said.
NextEra said it expects to add 15 gigawatts, or possibly much more, of new power generation for data centers by 2035.
Also to serve that demand, NextEra will partner with ExxonMobil to develop natural-gas-fired power plants for data centers that use carbon capture technologies.
Plans with Exxon include an initial 1.2-gigawatt gas plant, which would be jointly marketed to data centers, that would be located near the oil major’s carbon dioxide-carrying pipeline in the Southeast U.S., NextEra said.
RENEWED INTEREST IN NUCLEAR POWER
In October, NextEra announced that it would restart its shut Duane Arnold nuclear power plant in Iowa to power Google data centers under a 25-year power purchase contract.
The technology industry’s quest for massive amounts of electricity for AI processing has renewed interest in nuclear power supply, which includes restarting fully shut reactors, expanding the capacity of operating plants, and contracting for electricity from future small modular reactors.
That electricity demand has also propelled the development of natural-gas-fired power, which is quicker to build than nuclear, but produces global warming emissions.
NextEra said it expects to announce new natural-gas-fired power deals for data centers in 12–24 months.
NextEra said it had also signed 11 power purchase agreements and two energy storage agreements with Meta Platforms, totaling over 2.5 GW of energy contracts. The projects are scheduled to come online between 2026 and 2028.
The utility has also reached an agreement with WPPI Energy to continue supplying 168 megawatts of the output from the Point Beach Nuclear Plant in Two Rivers into the 2050s.
NextEra forecast higher adjusted profit in 2026 as well as the current year as it continues to benefit from the power demand surge.
The company now expects adjusted earnings for 2025 of between $3.62 and $3.70 per share, compared with its prior view of between $3.45 and $3.70 per share.
For 2026, it expects adjusted profit between $3.92 and $4.02 per share, compared with its prior view of between $3.63 and $4.00 per share.
(Reporting by Vallari Srivastava in Bangalore and Laila Kearney in New York, and additional reporting by Sumit Saha and Katha Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid, Shinjini Ganguli and Jan Harvey)